Page 39 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle

‘Miss Eddowes asked me to. She had the right to know.’

‘She has no rights at all, except the right to be silent,’ said her ladyship savagely. ‘And the same goes for you.’

‘I don’t know why you even care. I don’t see how it matters now he’s dead. If you ask me, the more you make a thing of it—’

‘I didn’t ask you. You are impertinent.’

Rose shrugged. ‘I’ve always been loyal.’

‘And I pay you well for it.’

‘It’s not something money can buy. Taylor and me, we stick by you because we stick by you. That’s all.’

‘You would be nothing without me, either of you. You’d do well to remember that.’

Bee snorted as her head was sharply wrenched round, and a boot heel in her side sent her from a standstill into a canter.

Rose watched horse and rider diminish into the distance. ‘Never mind a thank-you,’ she called after her – not that she would have heard. ‘I can manage without.’ But I’d sooner, she thought, as she trudged back towards the house, be me right now than her.

Her ladyship sat before the dressing-table glass as Miss Taylor did her hair. ‘You’ll have to send her away,’ Miss Taylor said quietly. The dowager didn’t respond. ‘There’s already talk in the neighbourhood about why you keep her on. If she was any good, it’d be another matter, but now there’s a new master and mistress—’

‘There is no new mistress.’

‘So you say – but how long will that last?’

‘You talk too much,’ the dowager said viciously.

Miss Taylor waited a moment, and went on, ‘Pay her off, that’s my advice. Pay her a good bit to go a long way away. Scotland, maybe.’ She went with her ladyship to Kincraig, Lord Leake’s Scottish place, most years, and the food there – well, she didn’t think Mrs Oxlea could ruin that. ‘Couldn’t his lordship find a place for her up there?’

‘My brother knows nothing about this.’

Miss Taylor pushed in another pin. ‘You should never have got yourself into it in the first place. You should have turned her out straight away. No one would be interested in a kitchen maid that got herself pregnant.’

Now their eyes did meet in the glass. Miss Taylor tried to read her mistress’s expression. What was it they called it in the sensational papers? Baffled rage, that was it.

‘For God’s sake,’ her ladyship said between clenched teeth, ‘do you think it was my idea?’

‘Oh,’ said Miss Taylor. And then, more humbly than she had ever said anything to her mistress, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

‘He insisted. And then – I was always afraid that she would talk. I couldn’t bear—’ She stopped.

The humiliation were the words she didn’t say. A kitchen maid! Mrs Oxlea had been pretty in those days, in the common way servants sometimes were. He had told her he would leave her if she didn’t keep the girl. Would he have? It had been a bad time; there had been things going on in his life that she didn’t know about, and he had taken it out on her, enjoying tormenting her, and the more she fought him, the harder he fought back. It was like living in a volcano of conflict and misery. But better that than the shame and public disgrace of separation and perhaps – unthinkably – divorce. To have her husband publicly choose a kitchen-maid over her – to be laughed at, sneered at – to be pitied . . . That was the worst of all. So she had given in. The child . . . She had had two miscarriages between Richard and Rachel. She was worn out. He had made a fuss of the child, as if to point up her failures. She had made one last stipulation, and he had agreed.

The Eddowes woman was known for general philanthropy, but in a discreet circle known better for helping girls who found themselves in trouble. She had them looked after until they gave birth, found a home for the child afterwards and a job for the girl. She had a network of friends and colleagues who placed fallen women with ‘liberal’ employers, who didn’t mind a shady past in their servants. But once the baby had gone, Stainton had insisted on her keeping Mrs Oxlea at the Castle. The child would go – but the mistress she must keep, to teach her her place. To teach her, Maud Stainton, a Forrest by birth, humility and obedience.

Rose and Miss Taylor stood close together at the end of a corridor. ‘What’s she going to do?’ Rose asked in an urgent undertone.

‘She hasn’t said. I advised her to send her away somewhere, as soon as possible.’

‘Poor Deena,’ Rose sighed, but not dissenting.

‘I wonder – was it right to tell her? Her ladyship, I mean,’ Miss Taylor said, suddenly doubtful. ‘Let sleeping dogs—’

‘Miss Eddowes was going to tell her. She said she had the right to know. And I suppose she did. She was going to give me a note to bring to her, but I said I’d tell her myself, and she agreed it was better not to have anything written down, in case.’

Miss Taylor looked scornful. ‘As if she’d show a letter like that to anyone – after all these years! Or leave it anywhere to be found. She’d have burned it straight off.’

Rose shrugged. ‘Oh well, it’s done now. And I’m glad it’s over. I was sick of being a go-between. And Oxlea – she’ll have to get a grip on herself now, won’t she?’ Miss Taylor looked doubtful. ‘She’s got to get rid of her, hasn’t she? Now she can.’